Devil's Consort Read Online Free Page B

heir to William, the tenth Duke of Aquitaine, the eldest of my father’s children, although not born to rule. Not that I, a woman, was barred by law from the honour, unlike in the barbaric kingdom of the Franks to the north, but once I had had a younger brother who had been destined to wear the ducal coronet. He, William—every first-born son was called William—was carried off by a nameless fever, the same as relieved my mother Aenor of her timorous hold on life. Leaving me. In the seven years since then I had grown used to the idea. It was my right to rule.
    But I was nervous. I did not think I had ever been nervous before: I had had no need, as my father’s heir. My lands were vast, wealthy, well governed. I had been brought up to know luxury, sophistication, the delights of music and art. I was powerful and—so they said—beautiful. As if reading my mind, my troubadour Bernart began to sing a popular verse.
    He who sees her lead the dance, sees her body twist and twirl,
    Can see that, in all the world, for beauty there’s no equal
    Of the Queen of Joy.
    I smiled. The Queen of Joy indeed. My looking glass confirmed what could be mere flattery, the greasy, self-seeking compliments of a penniless minstrel towards his patroness. But I was not ingenuous. Alone, unprotected, unwed, there would be a limit to my powers. I needed a husband with a strong sword arm, and powerful loins to get an heir on me—for him and for myself. A puissant lord who would stand with me and secure the future for Aquitaine, a man who could lead men and demand the obedience of the power-hungry lords who would snatch what was mine. A man who would be a fit mate for such as I.
    Ah, but would Prince Louis fit this mould?
    ‘Well?’ Aelith nudged me.
    ‘What do I hope for? A prince, of course,’ I replied.
    ‘That’s no answer.’
    ‘A man after my own heart.’
    ‘Self-important?’ Leaning against the carved window ledge, Aelith ticked them off on her fingers. ‘Opinionated? Arrogant?’
    But I sidestepped my sister’s chuckling malice and answered seriously enough. ‘Why not? He will rule my lands. He must do it well. He’ll not do it if he hasneither the backbone nor the spirit for it. Better a man with arrogance than one who’d sell himself short to make friends. My vassals need a firm hand.’
    We were standing in my bedchamber, Aelith, my women and I, high in the old keep, a spacious, graceful room with large windows to catch the light and any breath of air on this day of impossible heat. A room that I loved, full of my own possessions, and from where I could look out across the Garonne to observe the whole scene unfold hour by hour. It was July, hot as the gates of hell, and I was restless with impatience as Aelith and I observed the settlement grow. Tents, pavilions, sprouting like mushrooms, covered the open meadows, transforming them into a town in its own right. A vivid, richly-coloured Capetian town on Aquitaine soil. A foreign presence, and above it all the
fleurs de lys
of France. A portent for the future, I acknowledged, a French symbol of ownership over the mighty Duchy of Aquitaine. Before me, horses and armed men swarmed. Farriers and wheelwrights set up their booths and a market was soon under way. Small boats plied back and forth with Frankish noblemen or mounds of cabbages. My vassals, I was well aware, would question the relative importance of the two. It would not be a popular marriage but we would all have to live with it.
    ‘He must be handsome, of course,’ Aelith announced. She was already precociously aware of the male sex.
    ‘Of course.’ I had no thought of a husband who was less than pleasing to the eye.
    ‘Like Raymond.’ Aelith sighed a little.
    Raymond of Poitiers, my father’s young brother, now ruling as Prince of Antioch in distant Outremer.
    ‘Yes. Like Raymond,’ I agreed. My only meeting with Raymond had been of the briefest, four years ago now and for a mere few weeks, but my memory of